Why can’t I do what is right?

Question: How do we make our mind do what is important at that moment?

Speaker: Once you know what is important, there will be no need to make the mind work on it. Realization is such a potent force, that cannot be surmounted. If you think that even after realization you require some other prop, some kind of a support or motivation, for you to act as per the realization, then realization has not really happened at all.

Realization is extremely powerful. You cannot ‘realize’ and not act. It is impossible. Action follows realization. So if you come and say, “I realize, I understand, but I cannot act,” then you are mistaken. You actually do not realize at all. And also, action after realization is not time-bound. It does not even have any time lag. It is instantaneous and spontaneous.

Understand these two words. ‘Instantaneous’ means – then and there, tatkaal, instant, at that very instant. ‘Spontaneous’ means – without the need to think. And obviously fresh. Spontaneity also carries the connotation of freshness.

Realization strikes you dead. After that, you are gone. Realization is like an arrow. It hits you, and you are dead. And after that, realization works. You are already dead. After that, the arrow works. You are gone. You won’t even have to decide, realization will decide.

But these are the obstacles to realization – demanding what will happen after realization. Questions like: “Alright. Even if I realize, what will happen?” are a great obstacle to realization. Have you seen people asking this question? “Even if I come to know, what will happen?” Sometimes it is in the nature of inquiry, and at other times it is even in the nature of an assault. “If the entire world becomes Gautam Buddha, then what will happen? If everyone comes to realization in this world, then what will happen? Who will take care of it? Everyone will go to the jungle.” No, this is not even an inquiry, this is an assault.

You do not realize, but you are guessing so much about realization. And there is more innocent kind of foolishness. (Mockingly) “Sir, after Buddha got enlightened, how did he feel?” I come across these questions. Now you do not realize anything, how will you realize what the Buddha realized? But sitting where you are, you want to experience what realization is. “Sir, how is it possible that happiness and sorrow become the same for him? Is it not like being dead?” You never know when the cuteness ends, and cunningness starts.

You never know when innocence turns to insouciance. There is no one of us who is not carrying a concept of ‘realization’. There is nobody here. There is nobody here who is not carrying an image of the Buddha. That image is the obstacle. What you do not realize is, that the image you carry is that of a man, a person. Buddha is not a man or a person. He is awakening itself. And awakening can take an innumerable number of forms. What you are seeing is the form of a man in 6th Century B.C.

That is why in Buddhist tradition, they talk of Buddhas, not Buddha. Siddharth Gautam they refer to as ‘the Shakyamuni Buddha’. And there are countless other Buddhas as well. That makes it a little easier for you. Now you do not need to imagine a Buddha, because no imagination is alright. And every imagination is a possibility. Whatever you imagine, is be possible.

“Can the Buddha take the form of a thief?” Yes he can. “Could the Buddha be carrying a gun on the shoulder?” Possible. “Could the Buddha be an astronaut?” Yes, why not. But you are horrified. “Oh My God! I will have to go to jungle, walk barefoot, beg for my food. And the sangha will have no women. What to do? And what if I beg and someone gives only vegetables?”

Do not put yourself under the pressure to act. Realize, and let things happen on their own. You are under no compulsion to change yourself. Any such compulsion is firstly foolish, and secondly ineffective. Firstly, such a compulsion will arise out of ignorance. And secondly, this compulsion cannot be successful. Because change cannot come forcibly. So it won’t have any effectiveness. You may tell yourself, “Today I will do this,” you can pass thousand resolutions mentally, all of them will come to a naught.

So, let things be. Let your life continue as it is continuing. But know, and the knowing will subtly, silently, even without telling you, change everything. Or rather, change everything that must change. You can meanwhile happily continue with your current life. You do what you are doing, your realization will be at work. It will keep doing what it is doing.

When you go to Rishikesh, the highway diverges into a two-lane road at a place near Muzaffarnagar. This two-lane road is chaotic and messy, right upto Roorkee. Now traffic moves on this two-lane road, it is not an expressway. It is bumpy, it is narrow, and there is construction going on the parallel lanes. Realization is like that.

Your normal messy and chaotic life will continue on these two lanes, and parallely a new life will be built, without disturbing what is currently going on. So, you can continue with your regular life, but parallely a new road is also building for you. You need not leave this road. Do not think, “The highway is being broadened. A new road is being built, so let me just stop. I will go to Roorkee only when this construction gets completed.” You need not do that. You can continue with your ways, but parallely something else is also happening. Do not be afraid that something will be taken away from you. Nothing will be taken away. What do you have to be taken away? The road is already so bumpy, only holes are there. who can steal holes? What can be taken from you?

Marx very famously said to his people, “You have nothing to give, except your chains.” You are so poor, and you are so fettered that there is nothing except your chains that you can give. So even if you give, it will be good for you. But even your chains are not being requited. Keep them, continue. Do not be afraid.

Listener 1: Why are there so many things which are still left to do?

Speaker:(Referring to one of the posters made by a team member) Somebody very recently made a poster. The poster asked, “What is ‘inner poverty’? And the answer was, “A nagging feeling that something is missing.” Nagging means – something which is always troubling you, poking you, irritating you. A nagging feeling that something is missing. You do not know what is missing. If you are asked to pinpoint, to be specific, you won’t be able to tell. Because you do not know.

But wherever you are, whatever is the situation, you always keep feeling – “Not perfect. Something is missing. Am I forgetting something?” Have you seen such people who are always checking their pockets? “Is the key still there? Is the mobile phone still there?” They are actually not trying to ascertain that whether the mobile phone is still there. They are looking for something else, but they do not know what are they looking for. There is something that is missing, and it will keep missing irrespective of what you fill your pockets with. It will keep missing. What is it that is missing?

Let us take an example. We have just been through winters. Remember the place where we had our last camp? It used to be sub-zero in the nights. So, you would require a quilt, another quilt, couple of blankets there. So there is a small key that you have in your pocket, and it gets left on the bed, buried under the layers and layers of quilts and blankets. They key is for something precious, it is a key to a treasure. And it is there, right on your bed. But now it is hidden. You are missing the key. The bed is right in your home, the key is right on your bed, but you are missing the key. So what do you do?

Do you go out and say, “Look for my key, look for my key. What do I do? I cannot find my key.” You go and meet a few wise men there. They tell you that if the key is so precious, if it is the key to a treasure, then you must get an expert to look for the key. So you bring in the experts. But it is your house. Nobody can be an expert when it comes to your house. Now the expert cannot look for the key. So someone says, “Go and get made a duplicate key.” But the treasure is yours. Nobody else has seen that treasure. Even for the best key-maker, he must first have a look at the lock. Only you know the lock, so the key cannot be made.

Someone says, “Go ahead and buy another key,” and this is all what happening in the world. Now you are constantly going out, in search of..? The key. That key is right there in your home, but buried, under your own quilts and blankets. And you are going out and out. Someone says, “Do one thing. There must be some other keys of this kind in the world. It is a wide world. But you will have to earn them. You will have to show some guts and efforts. Success comes only to the ones who work really hard. So go out and work really hard. Earn the key.” And you are working very very hard, extremely hard to earn the key.

In fact you earn a lot of money. You take that money, all your money after thirty years of hard work, and you go to all the shops that are possible. You show them all your money and say, “Please give me the key,” but they cannot give it to you. Thirty years of hard work, and all the markets of the world cannot give you that key. They can deceive you. People will start getting greedy looking at your money, and they will say, “Fine. Give this money to us. We will give you the key. Now sit down, and read these books. They are about the art of key-making. Take a deep breath in, raise your left hand, extend your right leg, close your eyes.” This is called the key-aasana.

This is how the world runs. This is what you are missing. This is what you are searching. This is what you want to buy through all your efforts. Remember what all the money in the world cannot buy, is not called ‘valuable’. It is called ‘invaluable’, because it cannot be valued. All that you do all your life, will not give you that peace, that key. Whatever you are striving for, is bound to fail. It is already failing. Is it not failing? Are you at peace?

We often talked of the Center, of the Home. And the man is going away from his home and wandering in the woods. Do you know why man goes away from the Home? Looking for the keys to his Home. One is already Home, but looking for the keys to the Home, he goes out to look for the keys and gets lost. There is no search as ignorant, as useless, and as tragic as the search for happiness. And unfortunately, happiness or sukh, is something that all your well-wishers want for you, that all the markets and systems in the world promise you, and all that your mind is mad for.

It feels bad to hear that you will not get it. Right? You would rather hear the means, the ways, the methods to get it. That would please you more. But what do you want – to be pleased or the Truth? You won’t get the Truth. It is not something to be obtained.

“Sir, what about those who seem like having got it? What about those who are laughing and singing and who seem to be enjoying the market?” Go close! Happiness is a mirage that appears only from a distance. This is the thing about a mirage. It appears only when you are a little away from it. Go close to that point where the mirage appears, and the mirage is gone. Go close to happiness, and the happy people, and you will know what this happiness is. You will only see faces covered with tears. The smile, the laughter is visible, the tears are mostly hidden. You are not blind. If you go close, you will see.

Nobody has ever laughed, except in tears. Teary-eyed, we all laugh. There is no happiness without sorrow. In fact, happiness is another name for sorrow. Funny thing. Happiness promises relief from sorrow, and we buy that promise. Happiness is sorrow itself. How can it bring you relief from sorrow? Sometimes the scriptures also use the word ‘sukh‘, but when they do that, what they really mean is, the final, the para-meaning of the word ‘sukh‘. And that is not happiness, that is joy. The context in which you use the word ‘sukh‘ is mere pleasure. “Sada sukhi raho (Always be happy),” that only means – go, eat, drink, and be merry.

Listener 2: If we fail to realize when things start and end, does it mean that we are not aware?

Speaker: It means that you are missing something.

It means you were busy dreaming of love, when the beloved was by your side. It happens! The fellow is deeply asleep, and he is dreaming of the beloved. And the beloved is waiting and waiting by his very side, and then the beloved is gone. You are missing something. Would you just keep dreaming, or would you wake up? He comes, he comes daily, but finding you absorbed in dreams, he says, “Fine. May be next day will be the apt time.” Then he comes back again. He doesn’t really go away. He waits. You have to wake up.

He is waiting, and you too are waiting. Otherwise how could you have dreamed of him? Its just that you have been taught that dreams are the method to get to him. Its just a question of means and methods. Your thirst is the same as the thirst of a Kabir, or a Rumi, or a Farid. There is no difference at all. But they knew what the thirst was, so they could quench it. You have the thirst, but you also have a lot of knowledge from here and there. You have theories about thirst. They simply experienced the thirst, innocently, like a child. Have you seen a thirsty child? He simply says, “Mum!” He will not say, “Covalent bond. Two hydrogen molecules, and hydrogen bond between them. He will not talk of all these things. He will just say, “Mum.”

If you can just say, ‘mum’, like an innocent child, may be mother will be around to provide the water. But you are busy finding the thermal quotient of water, specific heat. (Mockingly) “Can H2O be turned into H3O? What if I take the hydroxyl ion and play games with it? Hydrogen is so light, what is the fun in drinking water that has hydrogen? Can I drink D2O, a little bit of radioactivity will be good fun.”

You have so much knowledge. Additionally, you have been told that when water comes in corporate packages, it is better. So the fountain may be in front of you, you go to a great hill and there is a clear spring in front of you, nothing but the beauty of nature, nothing to corrupt it, but the fellow is deeply thirsty. Because there is no one to corrupt the beauty of nature, there are no shops either. Our man is searching for packaged mineral water, and he is deeply thirsty, and he cannot get it. Only useless things are around, like the fresh water of the spring.

“I need corporate water. I have money. I want to pay. How can I take this natural, fresh water just for free? There is danger. My money will be of no use. If I drink from this, it proves that all my capital is useless. So I cannot drink this fresh water. I have to go to civilization and buy the packaged water from there. Water purified by the touch of machines, by the great wisdom of corporations. That is the water worth drinking.”

Ecstasy is what we all are missing. You can call it ‘mauj’. It is as simple and as direct as that. Throw yourself into the water, and you will forget all your nonsense. There is no point hitting outside, and listening to a clarity session. Throw yourself in, and all rubbish will evaporate, immediately. You will have no doubts left. It will become very clear that this is what you wanted.

Listener 3: Which water?

Speaker:(Mockingly) Corporate.

(Laughter)

He is more inquisitive about the corporate water. He wants to know which brand, which label. Otherwise, water is just one. “Piyat ram ras, lagi khumari (Drinking the juice of devotion, I am intoxicated).” This water is such that, it goes right to your head, and makes you mad. You understand khumari, intoxication? You go a little insane. Which water? Ram ras ( The divine water).

(Again mockingly) Did I say ‘apple juice’? I did not even say, ‘Aam ras‘, forget about apple. I said, “Ram Ras ( The divine water).”

(Laughter)

But such are our minds. Somebody just heard ‘apple juice’. Give up the apple. You know what happened when Adam and Eve ate the apple. They got banished from the kingdom of heaven. You want to be banished? Either give up the apple, or be banished. It’s dangerous. It was not without reason that God told them, “Do whatever you want to do, the garden is yours, but do not touch the apple.” But then there are those tricky serpents luring you.